Thousands of South African parents have paid more than R20‚000 each to store their babies’ umbilical cord blood and tissue for stem cells. But many do not know that‚ in most cases‚ blood cancers can’t be treated with a child’s own cord blood as the stem cells inside it may have the same mutation that led to the cancer.

Paediatrician Alastair McAlpine said he would never store blood for a child.